Viva Sales is for organization admins, who are responsible for tools and information in their organization. They eager to customize the tools and information in those tools, to support their business needs and provide their sellers the best ways to be more productive in their day to day.
A real pain
Unblock customers by allowing them to customize Viva saleS to their business needs
Viva Sales has a very structured hardcoded architecture with a limited, pre-defined data coming from a specific CRM (Salesforce/Dynamics). As each organization has different business needs, and poses a different information they work with, in order to use Viva Sales - it has to be tailored for the org and it's Sellers. If a product cannot be dynamic and won't address the customer dedicated needs - well, not a single customer will use it.
We had to create an experience that empowering our customers to tailor Viva Sales according to their unique business requirements, unlocking its full potential. Without this customization capability, customers would be unable to use the product, resulting in a failure for all of us. Therefore, it became a top priority for everyone to release it as quickly as possible, while having the best experience we can deliver in that time-frame.
We had to create an experience that empowering our customers to tailor Viva Sales according to their unique business requirements, unlocking its full potential. Without this customization capability, customers would be unable to use the product, resulting in a failure for all of us. Therefore, it became a top priority for everyone to release it as quickly as possible, while having the best experience we can deliver in that time-frame.
Challenges
Hardcoded structure & data
Our current product has limitations and hardcoded CRM data, preventing customers from using their own data and entities. This leaves sellers with minimal information to leverage when closing deals. Our challenge is to enable customization of the Viva Sales pane, allowing administrators to create the optimal data view for sellers. This customization should empower sellers to quickly input new customer information, opportunities, and deals, providing them with all the necessary tools to close deals successfully.
Settings tend to be very messy
Simplifying the settings area is crucial, as it tends to be inherently complex, especially when dealing with CRM. The urgency to deliver these customizations was super high, as each day without shipping them means a potential loss of customers and revenu
Support multiple CRMs
We need to accommodate different CRMs and utilize appropriate terminology for each, ensuring users feel the system is specifically tailored to their needs.
Impact on 5 different teams
Internal challenge which involved 5 multiple teams (Teams, Outlook, Excel, Collabs) that being impacted by any changes we will do. This requires good and transparent communication, constant syncs and coordination across different continents, necessitating synchronization despite time differences and the use of multiple platforms (apps).
Release ASAP
The urgency to deliver these customizations was super high, as each day without shipping them means a potential loss of customers and revenue.
Hardcoded structure & data
Our current product has limitations and hardcoded CRM data, preventing customers from using their own data and entities. This leaves sellers with minimal information to leverage when closing deals. Our challenge is to enable customization of the Viva Sales pane, allowing administrators to create the optimal data view for sellers. This customization should empower sellers to quickly input new customer information, opportunities, and deals, providing them with all the necessary tools to close deals successfully.
Settings tend to be very messy
Simplifying the settings area is crucial, as it tends to be inherently complex, especially when dealing with CRM. The urgency to deliver these customizations was super high, as each day without shipping them means a potential loss of customers and revenu
Support multiple CRMs
We need to accommodate different CRMs and utilize appropriate terminology for each, ensuring users feel the system is specifically tailored to their needs.
Impact on 5 different teams
Internal challenge which involved 5 multiple teams (Teams, Outlook, Excel, Collabs) that being impacted by any changes we will do. This requires good and transparent communication, constant syncs and coordination across different continents, necessitating synchronization despite time differences and the use of multiple platforms (apps).
Release ASAP
The urgency to deliver these customizations was super high, as each day without shipping them means a potential loss of customers and revenue.
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Goals
Unblocking and empowering customers by allowing them to customize Viva Sales to their exact business needs, with the right data at the right time
● Increase product adoption (MAU and Licenses) Drive product adoption by removing limitations and unblock customers
● Address business needs Provide flexible capabilities for customers to customize data and properties according to their specific needs
● Simplicity Create streamlined and user-friendly experiences for complex patterns
● Design system Establish new guidelines for teams entering the Settings area to ensure consistency and ease of use
● Address business needs Provide flexible capabilities for customers to customize data and properties according to their specific needs
● Simplicity Create streamlined and user-friendly experiences for complex patterns
● Design system Establish new guidelines for teams entering the Settings area to ensure consistency and ease of use
What customers need now in order to use our product?
What can be actually done within the timeframe and dependencies?
Customer interviews played a significant role in shaping the feature from its initial stages until after its release. These interviews helped us understand the specific customizations our customers needed to effectively begin and utilize Viva Sales. Additionally, we collaborated with customers to agree upon the phased release of features. During these interviews, we gained valuable insights into the diverse approaches users take within CRM systems such as Dynamics 365 and Salesforce. We also conducted conceptual messaging and terminology validations to ensure clear communication. Moreover, the interviews allowed us to identify and address any pain points or obstacles customers encountered. To ensure a seamless user experience, we continuously validated the user experience (UX) through prototypes and design iterations, making adjustments based on feedback and insights gathered throughout the process.
Business applications research shows that when decision-makers and CRM admins personally experience intuitive, usable systems, they're influenced, consciously and unconsciously, to believe that it will be valuable for their organizations
Defining information architecture and JTBD
When working on the Flow and IA, I carefully organized the settings to align with users' mental models and see how different capabilities work together, while working with several teams that has an impact on their end when Admins made customizations. Considering potential errors and dead ends, ensuring error prevention and providing clear guidance to avoid confusion. This was important to understand Admins Jobs-to-be-done all the possible flows to allow them to easily configure the settings while avoiding frustration or getting stuck in non-functional pathways.
How does it works or what controls admin actually have?
We decided to give the settings a dynamic content that supports all CRMs, with different terminologies for the name of the CRM (Dynamics and Saleforce each have different terminology ).
Admin is able to decide how much customization we’ll be given to sellers and where the limitation - for example on the main page I decided to limit to 10 entities for now as it can be very overwhelming to have more, 10 it’s already a lot. The decision was based on customer interviews - as they said they usually have approx. 5-15 entities.
Each entity can be edited, refreshed (data) removed.
As data coming from CRM and we refresh the changes for the user - unless a massive changes made that require Admins manual publish acceptance. For example - When a report or required fields where deleted and if we’ll save it for him it might create a mess for the seller
When entering the entity editing - admin is able to change the source of the entity, to decide the fields it's have, it's order (by drag and dropping) refresh the data, to give permission to sellers for editing and more.
Admin is able to decide how much customization we’ll be given to sellers and where the limitation - for example on the main page I decided to limit to 10 entities for now as it can be very overwhelming to have more, 10 it’s already a lot. The decision was based on customer interviews - as they said they usually have approx. 5-15 entities.
Each entity can be edited, refreshed (data) removed.
As data coming from CRM and we refresh the changes for the user - unless a massive changes made that require Admins manual publish acceptance. For example - When a report or required fields where deleted and if we’ll save it for him it might create a mess for the seller
When entering the entity editing - admin is able to change the source of the entity, to decide the fields it's have, it's order (by drag and dropping) refresh the data, to give permission to sellers for editing and more.
As the admin works behind the scenes, the output of the settings goes directely into the Viva Sales panel, which presented on all workspaces of the seller Outlook, Teams, Excel). Here's an example of how the changes look and behave on the sellers side.
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Content made easy with every flow and error covered
As settings are usually full with content working closely with a content writer awe made sure we cover every flow, every little error message and explanation tooltip. It was super important to work together so the experience won’t be too complicated or overloaded with text, as well as provide explanations for the Admin when he feels like he needs those or interested to learn more. We have different admins, some are more experienced and some less, and since the product it’s all new and the output is out there in a different place, we had to make sure everything covered and not to leave it to generic errors or notifications.
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Extensive design spec - including accessibility and telemetry sspecifics
While working with devs to ship the product, I search for feedback during regular syncs and UX walkthroughs, as when the time comes to handle the design spec, everything is covered. Creative an extensive design spec - covering all animalities, potential flows, error messages, empty states, as well as Accessibility guidelines towards components and interactions, and telemetry spec for meausing success in our design.
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Telemetry spec for design
As I mentioned before that - data is very important to me and I want to be aware of the the possible successes, failures and just things that we never would think of and sometimes occur during data reports.
To ensure comprehensive data collection, I collaborated with the product manager, developers, and data analyst. I identified key data points that would help me to gain a deeper understanding of user achievements, identifying experience gaps, and validating our hypotheses. For instance, if we observe that users interact with specific components but struggle to publish, it suggests a potential problem where the publish button may be hidden below the fold, leading to user failure in completing the desired action.
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Creating Design System & components
Being the first designer to delve into the settings area, I took the initiative to create and document all the necessary components for our Design library. This encompassed both the foundational components and the semantic ones specific to my area of focus, CRM customization. Subsequently, other designers who ventured into settings-related domains, such as Email insights and Teams settings, utilized the established base components and guidelines as a foundation for their work.
Summary & feedback
30.3 % of orgs successfully customized & published in Viva Sales
The engagement with the product and the feedback that we got from our customers in the few first months from releasing was a success.
As the next step we'll continue to phase 2 while giving more capabilities to admins to control customization for their organization.
As the next step we'll continue to phase 2 while giving more capabilities to admins to control customization for their organization.
“I have to say a massive massive thank you. I know you talked a long time ago about the needs and experience when you shared the Figma files, I know it’s not a small amount of work for the team, so I just want to knowledge that. It’s one thing for us to see it’s come to life, then planning on using it, but massive kudos to the team.”
“The experience was cool and very easy to go through.”
